The Mississippi River’s crest migrated slowly downstream on Friday, submerging farm fields and small towns with its relentless flow as people and industry tried to recover from the worst flooding in 15 years.
The flooding and violent storms, which have been blamed for 24 deaths since late May across the Midwest, have generated untold damage in the billions of dollars and are expected to aggravate rising food prices since they ravaged prime areas of the United States maize belt.
Hannibal, the boyhood home of author Mark Twain, was high and dry behind its earth levee and flood wall but other towns on both sides of the engorged river were not so lucky.
”It’s a beautiful river, but it can turn very vicious and ugly in a hurry,” said John Hark, emergency management director for the city of Hannibal.
President George Bush toured some of the devastation in Iowa on Thursday, and the White House said relief would be made available from $4-billion in the government’s disaster fund.
The Mississippi River has breached or overtopped about two-dozen levees so far this week, with 25 more seen at risk before its expected crest near St Louis, Missouri, on Sunday. No new levee breaches were reported early on Friday.
The US Army Corps of Engineers, which monitors the Mississippi, said the river continued to rise just above St Louis but levels were dropping slowly upstream.
The river will likely remain above flood stage for weeks. But compared with the region’s last major flood in 1993, a lack of high water on the Illinois and Missouri rivers, two major channels feeding the Mississippi, was encouraging officials.
Insurance companies that sell crop coverage to farmers, including market leader Ace, were expected to face big claims of as much as $3-billion in Iowa alone, a Lehman Brothers analyst said.
Claims from homeowners may not be large because few have flood insurance, analysts said. Only 17% of Americans buy the coverage, the Insurance Information Institute said.
strained and leaking levees
Volunteers, National Guard troops and prison inmates joined in the effort to shore up strained and leaking levees protecting homes and thousands of acres of prime farmland.
The flooding in five Midwest states was thought to have ruined at least two million hectares.
Bridges and highways have been swamped, factories shut down, water and power utilities damaged, and the earnings of railroads, farmers and myriad other businesses disrupted.
Barge traffic remains halted on the mid-Mississippi River, costing barge carriers millions of dollars a day. — Reuters